THE FAILURE OF FIVE- FOLD MINISTRY

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1 THE FAILURE OF FIVE- FOLD MINISTRY BY J.P. TIMMONS NOVEMBER 1, CCI PUBLISHING ALL RIGHTS RESERVED The Lord has been speaking to me for over a week now about the failure of the Church and five-fold ministry to bring about the desired changes that He wants to see in the world. Mostly it s the failure of five-fold ministry because of the mandate given for apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers and evangelists in Ephesians 4. And it s while I was reading Ephesians in my normal daily Bible reading and meditation on October 22 that He first began to speak about this though I ve known for over 30 years that the Church has delayed the coming of the Lord by their ignorance and behavior. But as I was reading Ephesians 4:11-13 on October 22 I thought about the following vision that is shared in Revelations from God, Volume 1 on page 184, I titled Vision of the Hospital Ward: Vision of the Hospital Ward Elliston, Montana February 22, 1999 I found myself standing in a hospital ward and there was a group of five doctors working together trying to save dying patients hooked up to respirators (oxygen). I knew in my spirit

2 that all these patients were dying from congenital heart failure. These doctors were puzzled about what to do because they kept losing patient after patient none were surviving. The doctors were all becoming quite frantic when I saw the Angel of Death standing next to the patient they were feverishly working on. I cried out, Oh, no! The doctors could not see this angel his appearance was like the grim reaper with a hooded robe but instead of blackness for a face he had the face of a human skeleton. Interpretation: The doctors of which there were five represented pastors and other Five-fold ministers. Almost everybody today in ministry is a doctor even if they never graduated from high school. They were unable to save their patients from death due to a lack of spiritual perception they couldn t see into the spirit realm. They were only dealing with the physical aspects of the patients and had no clue about what was going on in the realm of the spirit. This was literally killing the patients. My brothers and sisters, it is clearly stated in Ephesians 4 and this is Jesus method of ruling and governing His Church that Jesus gave these five offices as an extension of Himself to His Church with several purposes. But if we study and meditate on this subject like I ve done for over 30 years we realize that most of the Church is following their own ministry and church models and not that of the Lord Jesus. Notice what Five-fold is supposed to do: 1. to equip the saints for the work of ministry (4:12) 2. for building up the body of Christ (4:12) Until when? Until the last apostle dies? No! 3. until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood (4:13) 4. to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (4:13) and speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him Who is the head, into Christ, (4:15) 5. Now notice that if five-fold ministry were doing this here is the result We would see: from whom the whole body joined and held together by every Joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the Body grow so that it builds itself up in love. Is five-fold ministry accomplishing these tasks? I think not! Do you look more like Jesus than you did last year? If the answer is yes it s probably because you have taken the initiative and spent more time in the Word and in prayer, developing the Fruit of the Spirit, etc., rather than anything your pastor or other elders have done. If that s true of you then you can see the failure of five-fold ministry in your own life.

3 In most churches today which have departed from the faith by the way the pastor just shows up, preaches a message (many of which they purchase off the internet and don t receive directly from the Spirit for the people), they take up the offering and everybody goes home. Now if you don t believe me just take this quick litmus test for your community and your church. The Lord showed me this about 6 years ago when we were driving up to be interviewed on a Christian T.V. program. Here s the litmus test: with your church and all the other churches in the community, how come the devil is still in charge of your town and county? In most towns there s a church on practically every corner yet Satan still controls everything. Something is wrong with that picture, isn t it? And when you meditate for some time on Ephesians 4:11-16 you will notice that this failure by five-fold to do what they were commanded to do has led to several things: 1. The saints not being equipped for the work of the ministry. Many Christians would like To do something for the Lord and they were indeed created with spiritual gifts to do so but without the encouragement, training and prophetic insight of five-fold ministry they are not involved in the ministry they were called to. 2. There is no unity of the faith ; there are true churches and false churches but even in the true churches there is a spirit of division and disunity among the people and between churches. 3. The saints have little knowledge of the Son of God (v.13) as I ve demonstrated in articles Like Do you know Jesus the Healer? and The Word Becoming Flesh that I just ministered messages on in Michigan 2 weeks ago. Most Christians don t even know Jesus the Savior very well and know almost nothing about the other aspects of Jesus the Word that makes Him the Great I AM of the Scriptures. 4. The children, because they are not maturing they stay children and babies and therefore they are still tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 5. They do not speak the truth all the time and they don t speak the truth in love. The Lord told me a few years ago that most Christians manifest demonic spirits more than they manifest the Holy Spirit. That s horrible! 6. The whole body is supposed to be joined and held together by every joint with which It is equipped (v. 16) but because each part is (not) working properly, 7. The body does not grow and build itself up in love. (v. 16) There is very little love in the Body of Christ today as a result of this and the fact that instead of doing what they are supposed to do, some if not most in five-fold have sought to build their own kingdoms and thus they are using the ways and methods of the world such as church growth seminars, video games for the kids, etc. to build their churches because they are looking for quantity instead of quality that results from true five-fold ministry. As a result of these things, the present Church is often selfish and self-centered. Instead of concentrating on ministry, helping the poor, etc., they are seeking wealth and material possessions. Egged on by the Balaam Boys appealing to sensuality as Peter prophesied would

4 come in 2 Peter 2. Many ministers know that in order to grow (they are trying to grow it instead of letting the Holy Spirit do it like in Acts when they followed Jesus model in Ephesians 4) their church they have to do two things: 1) attract new people and families, and 2) prevent the people from leaving their church if at all possible. Hence, they too have begun to appeal to sensuality and the methods of the world to give the people what they want instead of what God wants to keep them from leaving for greener pastures. This contributes to the ongoing self-centered nature of the people and stunts their growth. It also withholds their blessings because the Lord will not bless this behavior. He wants us to forget about ourselves and be about His business of saving the lost, praying for the sick, casting out devils and loving a sin-sick, crying dying world. So what is the result? It s the same as 20 years ago in October, 1996, when the Lord said to me: The apostolic banner is beginning to wave; and from this apostolic move I will bring order out of chaos. Yes, the Church is in chaos! Still as much today or more so because of all the false apostles and prophets going around preaching in churches. You might not realize it, my brother and sister, but when a person comes to your church and claims that they re a five-fold minister and they aren t then they might even teach a very good bible lesson but because they are not anointed for the office they are claiming to be it brings confusion to the spirits of those hearing the message. The message may be very good intellectually; it might be true, but if it s not anointed it will bring confusion to your spirit. I was ministering in Chester, S.C., a few years ago. It was my first trip to this town and the Lord gave me several visions while I was there about the problems in the community going clear back to Civil War days spiritual problems that the local churches had not dealt with. As a result of these problems there was tremendous racism, violence and sexual impurity in this town like most cities, the devil was in charge. While I was there the couple in charge of the ministry there told me about a prophet from Charleston who was in town at a certain church and said they were going and asked if I wanted to go. I went and he preached a good message but then it morphed over into money and the Balaam Boy stuff; asking people to bring $500, $300, etc. to the front so he could prophesy over them. Why does the pastor of this church allow this sort of thing? My point exactly, the failure of five-fold ministry. Although in this case, the woman who had pastored the church for decades and owned a Christian book store in town was not anointed as a pastor yet she will be judged as such by the Lord. How sad. Many are going to hear on that day, Depart from Me I never knew you. So, yes, there are many who are simply hirelings working with false prophets and other false five-fold ministers for money. But what about the genuine five-fold ministers? Those with good hearts who are not deceitful but are earnestly trying to help the people of the Lord in their community be the committed Christians they should be. Why are they failing to achieve the mandate the Lord gives in Ephesians 4 for Church elders? There are many reasons. And probably the biggest one is still the refusal of the Church to embrace the fact that there are five ministerial offices given by the Lord Jesus and each has a unique anointing that is needed in order to build up and establish the genuine Church. If a local church is not following this

5 scriptural method then that church is going to be weak there s no way around it. But if you have a genuine pastor and he cares for your spiritual growth then it s his responsibility to see that other five-fold ministers are invited in to preach or teach. Remember, the anointing of a teacher is different than that of an evangelist but a church needs both. Another big reason why churches are not following the Lord s model given in Ephesians is that most ministers still have too much pride they don t want to submit to spiritual authority and they often don t recognize it. Many years ago the Lord gave my wife a vision where we were invited to a large church. After the preaching service they had a meal downstairs in the fellowship hall and it was a great meal with fried chicken and many other things. In the vision she noticed that the people resented the fact that we were there eating their chicken. They recognized that we had spiritual authority but they resented us being there. Another reason similar to the previous one is that they don t want to submit to spiritual authority because they don t recognize the anointing and true spiritual authority of a genuine apostle and they ve been fooled in the past by false apostles and prophets who have come in and almost destroyed their church. Remember, Satan always sends the false just before God manifests the true this breeds confusion in the churches as well as distrust, jealousy, etc. We see this tactic quite clearly when we read Paul s epistles to the Corinthians, Galatians, etc. It was taking place in his day and it s taking place today as well. These churches were going after the super apostles as Paul referred to them and neglecting what he had taught them they were following another gospel and another spirit and another jesus. Just remember, it s the anointing that determines what (or if) office a person stands in. Learn to recognize the five anointings. Like all anointings, even if genuine they can be stronger or weaker depending on a number of factors but you need to recognize the anointing upon a person because that is the Lord s stamp of approval on that person. And as Paul so aptly wrote, apostles of all the offices have some rather lofty characteristics and sign posts in the area of having seen the Lord and performing signs, wonders and miracles by which they were recognized in the early Church. And as I ve taught for 30 years, remember this important fact: there will always be more false prophets, false apostles, false pastors, etc. than there will be genuine ones. Learn to recognize the true from the false by the anointing. And I ve learned that people will accept and believe this but they fail to believe that their own pastor is false or that a prophet coming into their church is false. So what is the solution to the dilemma of the failure of five-fold ministry? I can t tell you; the Lord has not said anything to me about it other than what He said in 1996 that from the (genuine) apostolic move I will bring order out of chaos. The Lord Jesus is building His Church and I m confident that He knows how to do much better than I do. My part is no different than yours, my brothers and sisters, I am to be obedient to what He calls me to do and that is why I am writing this article. Praise the Lord! Maranatha

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